Outspoken!

The book is at the printer. There are hardly better words an author can hear. It means all the work that the writer can do is done. Books start out in pieces, ideas, outlines, proposals, chapters, rewrites upon rewrites and then they come back in pieces, galleys, designs, finally, a printed cover. Then there are calls from friends, “hey, I saw your new book advertised.” Thursday we received an extra piece, a copy of the DVD of Michael working with his kids at Playhouse Square and going to the Youth Slam in NYC. The DVD will be included in the book and its production has actually delayed the production of the book by a month or so, but now seeing the DVD, the delay is so worth it. I only have a blip of a non-speaking role in the DVD. The most powerful moments in it are the interviews with the kids. I know there are lots of DVDs about slam floating around, but most of them are geared to adults and spoken in VERY adult language, what my grandmother used to call “sailor talk.” But this DVD gets the fun and teamwork message of slam across in classroom ready form. The kids are soooo great. It made me cry.

Three more weeks they are saying and we will have the finished book and the DVD all packaged together in one piece. In our hands. With other projects now in pieces, it’s important to take a minute to just sigh and feel satisfied.